Everybody Loves Eric Dolphy

—for Brian Engel-Fuentes

Father glues the hippo back
together, as he’s done before
when the others broke.

It’s no small task.

Opened envelopes hang
like cranes on a line. Herons,
in real life, are bigger but hard

to make with a piece of paper.

When Elvis died, nothing
happened to the weather. Nectar
toured the planet, nesting

in the mouths of bees.

A cello murmurs something
about tennis, or sailing.
Only the walls know for sure—

they’re so discreet!

Days are short here, nights
shorter. We sleep
like blind sailors in beds

that deliver us secretly home.